CAIRO, Egypt: Leading human rights groups jointly urged Tehran on Thursday to immediately release American-Iranian scholars and activists held by Iran on suspicion of spying and banned from leaving the country.
The call came as the United States confirmed Thursday that Iran is holding four dual U.S.-Iranian nationals in custody in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
The four include Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars; Kian Tajbakhsh with George Soros’ Open Society Institute; journalist Parnaz Azima from the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; and Ali Shakeri, a peace activist and founding board member at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.
In a joint statement, London-based Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch in New York, Reporters without Borders from Paris, the International Federation for Human Rights and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, urged Iran to stop “harassment of dual nationals.”
The detentions were an “attempt by Iran’s security authorities to sow fear into the wider community of journalists, writers, scholars and activists,” said the statement, made available to The Associated Press in Cairo.
The held Iranian-Americans are professionals whose “exchanges with counterparts in other parts of the world underscore both their commitment to enhance mutual respect and recognition of human dignity through dialogue,” the groups said.
Esfandiari, Tajbakhsh and Azima have been charged with endangering Iran’s national security and espionage, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday. It was not immediately clear if Shakeri — who was supposed to leave Iran and fly to Europe on May 13 but never arrived at his destination — has also been charged.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey on Thursday confirmed that Shakeri is also in custody at Evin.
All four Iranian-Americans were in Iran visiting family members or engaged in professional work, according to Casey and their relatives and employers.
Casey said there had been no response to requests for access to the prisoners by Swiss diplomats who represent U.S. interests in Iran and repeated denials that any of the four are spies or are employed by the U.S. government.
Esfandiari and her organization have been accused by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry of trying to set up networks of Iranians with the ultimate goal of creating a “soft revolution” in Iran, along the lines of the revolutions that ended communist rule in Eastern Europe. The ministry alleges the Open Society Institute, which seeks to promote democracy, was part of the conspiracy.
Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, the Wilson Center and the Open Society Institute deny the allegations.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the treatment of Esfandiari and the other Iranian-Americans “a perversion of the rule of law.”
“These charges are politically motivated and only serve to further isolate Iranian civil society,” the human rights groups said.
Their statement said Tehran has also confiscated the passport of Mehrnoush Solouki, a French-Iranian journalism student from Quebec University, preventing her from leaving Iran, where she was making a documentary.
A fifth American citizen, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, has been missing in Iran since early March, and Washington has cast severe doubt on Iranian claims to have no information about him.
The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The poor ties since then were exacerbated in recent months by rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. allegations that Tehran is supporting armed groups in Iraq.
Last week, Iran said it has uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies.
